


Starting Over

by navaan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Past Torture, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4298733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starting over isn't easy, when you're not sure who you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starting Over

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spiderfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderfire/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Starting Over / Начать всё заново](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500966) by [sverhanutaya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sverhanutaya/pseuds/sverhanutaya)



> This fic was translated into Russian by sverhanutaya [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5282656)
> 
> Happy Birthday, Spiderfire! Written for your [Talking Meme ](http://navaan.livejournal.com/205743.html) “Bucky” prompt!
> 
> You can also read and comment on Livejournal [here](http://navaan.livejournal.com/206447.html).

Start over.

He has heard the term before a thousand times, but only slowly are all of them coming back to him. Few of them make good memories.

_He's unstable, sir. - Then wipe him and start over. - Something triggered a memory. - Then start over. - He's not responding. - Start over._

He thinks he might have really heard that a thousand times. Might have, actually, but it's hard to recall. Sometimes it comes back in flashes and a jumble of audio-sensory memory that makes him nearly topple over as long as it lasts.

 _Unstable,_ the familiar voice in his memory supplies, but he's been out on his own for months now and he thinks it might actually mean something else. “Upset”, maybe. “Healing” might be closer. Healing is supposed to hurt, isn't it? He wakes up sometimes, remembers falling, remembers snow, remembers ice, remembers darkness, remembers pain. His body remembers the person they made him, moving in the shadows, keeping out of sight, always ready to strike.

It's been months and he's done his homework, wiping all traces of himself wherever he goes, staying out of Hydra's way, staying away from Steve and his merry band of colorful heroes. Part of him remembers, sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes “Steve” is just a name, a mission he failed at. But he knows the facts now, about Captain America, about Steve Rogers and his relation to the person he once was.

Still he best remembers the man from his mission, from the words he spoke to him on a Helicarrier, from the moment when in the middle of it all something had triggered the memory of a young, frail man sitting in a window sill making a quick sketch of something – he can't remember what – and coughing pitifully. It's a far cry from Captain America, who took his punches and answered them blow by blow, but he _knows_ it's the same man.

His memories are still a mess. A tiny part of himself remembers James Buchanan Barnes, but it doesn't feel like he ever was that person, knows that he grew up together with Rogers in Brooklyn from the files more than from his looping scraps of memories.

So he lives like he's on a mission. Cleans up, cuts his hair, keeps his head down, changes locations, makes sure not to be traceable. The arm is a handicap sometimes and he moves to a cottage in the woods when summer comes around – away from people, away from cities.

He needs time to figure out who he is.

Start over.

And he can't do it with someone like Rogers around. It's just too much. 

He's the Winter Soldier. He's the Hand of Hydra. And he may be picking his own path now by staying away from it all, but that doesn't change the fact that he still is the person who did all these things, still knows how best to kill, still doesn't know if he can feel remorse some days, but feels like the guilt might kill him on others.

The one thing he knows is he's not the man he was before all that. There's no way to ever go back there. He hasn't been that man for more than 70 years even if he doesn't actually remember half of that time. Who he is now, he can't say yet, but he knows he's someone else.

He makes a customary round around the cottage, checks all the entrance ways, checks the surrounding area, takes his round slowly, one step at the time, gun at his side in case he will need it. He doesn't know why he cares. But then the flashes of the icy cold, the flashes of blinding white lights above him, of doctors taking his arm apart and putting it back together, of the friendly words, the silent orders, the moments of “wipe him” and “do your part” and of the following pain, the hot and searing pain that takes away all thought, come back to him all at once, suffocating and cruel.

He cares because he's never going back to that, even if he can't go back to _before_ either. After the memories release him he continues his round with firmer steps and new determination. This is the mission he won't fail. not going back, figuring out what to do from here.

Before he reaches the front of the little cottage he knows something is wrong. He stops, his gun already out, tries to carefully peer around the corner. 

She's leaning against a tree on the other side of the little clearing, wearing jeans and a brown leather jacket, her glowing red hair falling to her shoulders, unmistakable. Her arms are crossed in front of her chest as if she's waiting for something. She's smiling too. Although she looks relaxed he knows it's a deception. Automatically he files away all the ways he can take her out, before she even knows he's there. 

He knows he can take her.

Which means she knows it too.

“Nice place you've got here,” she drawls.

He steps from the cover finally, gun out and pointed at her head with his real arm, letting her see the metal one deliberately, reminding her. “Leave. I'm not coming with you.”

She cocks her head to the side and studies him. As she does her eyes go dark and cold like storm clouds and he knows exactly what she's thinking then, how she's taxing him, making her own judgments about this situation, planing her options. “Who says I want you to?”

Natasha Romanoff is a skilled liar. “Why would you be here otherwise?” He remembers her attack, remembers going after her specifically, instead of taking out Captain America first. Maybe he doesn't know enough about her, but she doesn't seem like a forgiving person. Perhaps she's here to prove to herself that she can take him, to even the score.

But she sighs and looks away, just enough to still keep him in sight, not moving her arms from where they are resting against her chest. “Troublesome few days,” she says and he knows what she's talking about, has seen the pictures of Sokovia all over the news. “Needed some time to clear my head and Steve's personal missing person case seemed like a good option to get away for a bit.”

He doesn't lower the gun, doesn't move.

She doesn't either.

They just stare at each other, gauging, waiting.

“I'm not coming with you,” he says firmly. “I'm not even sure who I am.”

She fixes him with a stare and then nods. “Then start over,” she says, as if it's nothing. “On your own, if you want.”

He still doesn't lower the gun. _She's lying,_ he thinks, before a harsh voice whispers _Start over_ in his mind or memories.

“I had help,” she says. “After the red room. New world outside of what you're supposed to be can be... overwhelming.”

He lowers the gun, lets it sink to his side. Ponders that. It's time to really start over, make decisions. He's not going to kill an Avenger. He's not going back with her. Apparently he voices both thoughts and Natasha nods, suddenly strides towards his porch as if the threat has passed and sits down as if she belongs there.

“Okay.” She nods. “Fine with me.”

He stands there for a full minute staring at her, before he moves and sits down beside her frowning.

She doesn't tell him that it will get better, that one day he'll be ready to come. She doesn't say: “Steve misses you.” He doesn't ask any questions.

They sit in silence.

There are no flashbacks, no voices ghosting through his mind. Just soothing silence, the noise of wind in the trees. It sounds like freedom.

Just this small moment of uncanny understanding seems enough to make him realize who he is or could be. “I'm James,” he says, offering her something.

“It's nice to meet you, James,” she says. “Like the hair.” She indicates his haircut. 

He nods, thinks that one day “Bucky” might have said: “I like yours better.” He would have winked, too.

But this is new. And old. Different.

This is what starting over feels like.


End file.
